


what is this, a romance novel?

by witchGirl (Unosarta)



Series: what is this, a lifetime movie? [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27286165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unosarta/pseuds/witchGirl
Summary: In which Stiles contemplates the nature of love across three time periods in his life.Because he's a giant fucking sap.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: what is this, a lifetime movie? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992295
Comments: 3
Kudos: 98





	what is this, a romance novel?

They’ve been dating - properly dating, with dinners out and movies and many things that Stiles had no idea counted as dates - for six months, when he brings it up.

“You know,” Stiles says, lazing around in their bed - formerly Derek’s bed - in the evening, basking in post coital glow with his extremely non-platonic mate. “‘I love you’ kind of sucks. As a phrase.”

Derek is still blissed out next to him, covering his eyes with one hand and looking like he just saw God.

No one ever accused them of being bad in bed.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Derek says, voice almost a groan.

“I love you,” Stiles says immediately. It’s true, why not say it. “And obviously I mean it. You can hear that I’m not lying. But, I’m just saying, it’s kind of imprecise, isn’t it?”

Derek cracks an eye and looks at Stiles exasperatedly. “This is where you wait for me to ask what you mean.”

Stiles jumps into his explanation anyway. “Like, I love my dad, I love Scott, and I love you, and those are all completely different kinds of love, right?”

Derek covers his eye again and sighs. “You don’t have to turn this into something it isn’t. If you don’t feel comfortable saying it back, don’t.”

Stiles rolls over on top of Derek and pries his hand away. The Alpha’s eyes flash red for a moment as Stiles pins his arms to the bed. “I love you,” he says intensely, “because you make me happy. When I’m with you, I feel safe.” Derek looks away, growling softly, and Stiles releases one arm to pull Derek’s gaze back to him by the chin. “I want to have a family with you. I would sacrifice everything I have, including myself, for you. I want to make you happy.”

Derek swallows and nods, his chin still clasped between Stiles’ fingers.

“That’s why. You deserve to hear exactly what I mean when I say the words, and not just what you expect from obligation.”

“You make me happy too,” Derek says a little breathlessly. “You make me better. You make me want to be someone who deserves you.”

“Too late, asshole, you’re already there.”

Derek huffs a little laugh and pulls Stiles down so he’s resting on the man’s shoulder, holds his head in place and scratches light fingers through Stiles’ scalp, and somehow they manage to fall asleep like that.

When Stiles wakes the next morning, it’s to pre-dawn light and the still sleeping form of Derek underneath him.

The thing is, people love to make seemingly grandiose claims about the world and how it works, trying to pat themselves on the back for having ‘figured it out’, when usually all they’ve done is restate a simple truth. People will twist the most obvious things into loops trying to find profundity.

Stiles would much rather observe the world as it is, as frankly as he can and without bluster.

So when Stiles thinks to himself, as he looks at Derek sleeping on their bed, in his arms, ‘meaning is the soft silences you spend with the people you care about, doing things that matter’, it’s not pontification but rather observation.

It’s Stiles, in that moment, looking at Derek and feeling a deep wonder spread through him, unfurling from his chest and coiling down to his toes. It’s Stiles imagining a lifetime of mornings spent waking up next to Derek like this. It’s Stiles knowing, beyond all shadow of doubt, that he’s never been happier in his life than when he’s with this idiot.

His idiot.

He’s pretty sure that’s what love is.

And when Derek wakes, as awareness slowly spreads through his body one twitching muscle at a time, as he grunts softly and cracks his eyes to look at Stiles, and as his face softens into the sweetest little smile?

Stiles knows he’s right.

He understands it a little better now, the reason to say ‘I love you’. How the fuck is he supposed to reveal the massive swell of affection in his chest with simple words and actions? Is he supposed to crack open his rib cage and point to all of the places Derek has wormed his way in? The immensity of the feeling is almost too great to bear in his own body, let alone on his tongue.

How do you show someone how much they mean to you, when he means _this much_?

Stiles spends the few moments it takes for Derek to wake more fully trying to grasp at these slippery feelings with shaking fingers.

In the end, he says, “I could watch you wake up a thousand times and never tire of it,” because it’s the truth, and because he has no idea how else to say what he’s feeling.

“You make me feel like happiness is possible,” Derek says softly, and Stiles can hear the unspoken ‘I love you’ in those words.

They lay there, in the morning light, dozing softly.

* * *

Nate sits Stiles down in front of him at the kitchen island and clears his throat nervously. The kid is barely a sophomore in high school and he already is the spitting image of Derek. It’s almost eerie.

“What’s up, bud?” Stiles asks gently, trying to be encouraging and not overbearing. Nate is at the stage - Stiles has been researching _stages_ much to Derek’s chagrin - where he wants to be seen as an adult and not a kid to be bossed around.

“So,” Nate begins, sounding more hesitant than Stiles has ever heard him. “There’s this girl.”

Stiles places his chin on his hand and leans forward. “Do tell.”

Nate covers his face with his hands. “Please don’t make this a big thing, I don’t want to be any more embarrassed than I already am.”

“Who said I was going to make it a big thing?” Stiles asks. “My son likes a girl, so what, it happens.”

“We’ve been kind of… seeing each other…”

Stiles raises his eyebrows. “And no one knows yet?”

“I’ve been careful!” Nate squeaks. “We’ve been going slow and nothing… like that, has, um,” he trails off, and Stiles had to physically hold back his laughter with his hand. He is a supportive dad, dammit.

“It’s fine, kid, I’m impressed.”

Nate nods, gathers his courage for a moment, and continues. “So, I mean, how do you… know.”

“Know?”

“If… you know, if she’s the one. Like you and Alpha.”

Stiles almost falls off of his seat laughing. “Oh, wolf boy” he says breathlessly, “you sure as fuck _don’t_ know.”

Nate looks stricken, and Stiles rushes to clarify.

“And you shouldn’t. Do you know how long I knew your Alpha before we got together? It was like, five years. We didn’t even like each other when we first met.”

Nate looks as if this concept had never crossed his mind. “But… you’re…”

“We figured it out in the end, but it took a while. A really long while, even when we were dating, where we didn’t know if we were going to stay together. We even hurt each other.”

“But…”

Stiles raises a hand to stop him. “I’m not trying to discourage you, I’m just telling you the truth. You may really like this girl, but regardless of how much you like her, or what kinds of feelings you have for her, you never know if she’ll be ‘the one’.”

Nate folds his hands in front of him on the counter and stares down at them for a long moment. “What is it like?” he asks without looking up. “With you and Alpha?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you know that you love him?”

Stiles scoots his chair around the island so he’s sitting next to the kid and wraps an arm around him. Nate leans into him instinctually, turning his head into Stiles’ shoulder.

“When I see your Alpha, and I know that he cares about me like I care about him, it makes me feel happy. It makes me feel strong. I want to make him feel just as happy and strong as he makes me. The thought of hurting him feels like it hurts me.”

Nate sniffles a little bit, though Stiles isn’t sure if that’s because he’s crying or if it’s to get some of his dad’s scent. “That doesn’t sound like the stuff in movies,” he says, voice wobbly.

“What do the movies say?”

“That you’re supposed to not want to be without them. That you think only of them. That you’d die without them.”

“That sounds more like obsession than affection, to me,” Stiles says.

“Oh.”

“Hey,” he says, pushing back Nate’s bangs from the kid’s forehead with his free hand. “No shame. However you feel about this girl is how you feel about her. It doesn’t have to be exactly like what me and Alpha have for it to matter.”

“Yeah,” Nate says, voice slightly less wobbly. “Yeah.”

“Does she matter to you?” Stiles asks gently.

“I - I think so.”

“That’s great. I’m glad you’ve found someone you care about.” He pauses for a moment, considering. “You know, your Alpha is going to want to meet her.”

He doesn’t have to see it to know Nate is making a face into Stiles’ shirt. “Can we maybe keep this between you and me?”

Stiles laughs, imagining Derek trying to greet his baby boy’s first girlfriend with anything less than full on murderbrows. “No problem. Does she know about us?” he asks, already fairly certain of the answer.

“Not yet.”

“Do you want to tell her?”

“... not yet.”

“ _Definitely_ let me know if you do.”

“I know, dad, I will.” Stiles can hear the eye roll in Nate’s voice.

They sit there, Nate clutching Stiles as tightly as his little werewolf fingers will go, until the kid has calmed down and sits back in his chair.

“So,” Stiles says, turning to Nate and grinning, “tell me all about her.”

Nate may groan and whine, but Stiles can see the shining look in his eyes as he describes the - apparently - prettiest girl in the school.

* * *

As Stiles has grown older, he’s found that love is a habit that he falls into easily. It’s not that the spark he feels when he sees Derek has faded in intensity, but rather that his need to act upon it has calmed as his certainty in his husband’s love for him has grown.

Helping Derek reluctantly put on his tux, tying his bow tie since the Alpha adamantly refuses to learn how, and sitting next to him in the front row of the little Unitarian church in Beacon Hills only confirms this for Stiles.

His love for Derek has expanded in his chest like a tree growing roots.

Alex is a grumbly mess next to Derek, his own suit a little wrinkled where he’s slumped over. Derek pats his knee and the kid calms immediately. Derek has always had a way with him.

Nate keeps glancing at Stiles from the raised platform where he and the rest of the wedding party stand and smiling nervously, and Stiles smiles back reassuringly every time. He loves that kid something fierce, so much it aches in his chest, and it’s reaffirmed as he watches him bounce giddily on the balls of his feet, his best friend and best man occasionally putting a hand on his arm reassuringly.

Finally, after what feels like an all nighter on an OD’s worth of adderall, the doors in the back open and Tanya and her grandpa begin walking slowly down the aisle.

It’s not that Stiles doesn’t love the girl; if there is anyone who is good enough for his son, it’s her. She’s just as warm, bright, and funny as he is, just as caring and nurturing, just as smart and cutting. In some couples opposites attract, but Nate and Tanya clearly show the other case can also be true.

But despite how much he cares about his nearly daughter-in-law, he can’t tear his eyes off of the look of pure wonder on his eldest son’s face. Something about it reminds Stiles of that morning however many years ago, looking at Derek wake from sleep like it was Stiles waking up, opening his eyes to a new world.

Derek squeezes Stiles’ hand in his own, and even then Stiles can’t bring himself to look away.

The love is different, it’s true, but the enormity of it in his chest is no less for that difference. His feelings echo across time and feel only as if they grow louder for it. When he finally manages to break his eyes away, Derek is looking at him, smiling the same soft, sweet smile from that morning despite gray hairs peppering his beard and the hint of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

It’s like a habit, falling back in love with Derek. You never really forget how to do it. You look at him and all you can think is, ‘oh’.

‘This is the man I get to spend the rest of my life with, if I’m lucky.’

Stiles feels pretty lucky.


End file.
